Hardcover

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Overview

"[Mom] bursts with stories that are unvarnished, sad, funny, wise, and most of all, very real." -Chicago Tribune (Editor's Choice)

Featuring StoryCorps' most revealing stories on the subject, Mom looks across a diversity of experience to offer an entirely original portrait of motherhood. In conversations between parents and children, husbands and wives, siblings and friends, the life of the American mother unfolds. In these stories of profound joy and sadness, courage and despair, struggle and triumphs, we learn new truths about that most primal and sacred of bonds-the relationship between mother and child. With this vital contribution to the American storybook, StoryCorps has created a tribute to mothers that honors the meaning of family and the expansiveness of the human heart.

Dave Isay's newest book, Callings, will be published by Penguin Press on April 19, 2016.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In time for Mother's Day, Isay brings a satisfying second collection of StoryCorps selections after the bestselling Listening Is an Act of Love. Throughout 30,000 recorded interviews by everyday Americans are numerous memories of parents, and among the many mothers who share their stories in this collection are mothers of every variety—single, working, stay-at-home, with one child or a dozen. A couple describe an unexpected camaraderie between their mothers: one American, the other Ethiopian: “My mom would speak in English, and your mom would speak in Amharic, and then they'd laugh and throw their hands up.” A mother of 12 tells her youngest, age 12, about her oldest, a soldier killed in Iraq. Reunited at age 60 with the son she reluctantly gave away, Hilory Boucher tells him what happened as she rode away from a Boston home for unwed mothers: “You were handed off to a social worker at a stop on the Merritt Parkway, with your pink bunny and your layette.” Readers will encounter an emotional range from heart-wrenching to inspirational in these compelling maternal accounts. Photos. (May)